A New Year Resolution for More Payment Security?

We’ve been watching the MarketWatch website since the new year kicked off, mostly to track the rather breathtaking gyrations of the stock market (as well as the news out of China, the steady ebb of oil prices, and more).

Most are constructed around new technologies or political issues that could have direct economic impact — increasing “smart” car technology, expanded drone use, the looming introduction of virtual reality, and ever more saturation with all things Star Wars (which may only be a “game changer” if you currently hold Disney stock).

But a couple of the items touch on issues we’ve covered here through the last couple of new years, and they’re worth touching on again:

Employers Will Begin Cracking Down on Hackers: The headline is a little misleading, since it implies all hackers are in fact in the “employ” of the companies that get breached (on which note, see the item below). But it notes that “the world spent more than $75 billion on information security in 2015, according to research firm Gartner Inc. Those investments include detection systems to find and isolate intruders lurking in systems before they can siphon or tamper with corporate or customer information,” and companies will be more relentless in ferreting out such intruders. We hope. Because we certainly wish we didn’t have so many new and compromising breaches to report here.

You’re going to have to do more security training at work: Connected to the above, a subsequent item notes that “employee error is the leading cause of data breaches, according to a report released in December by the Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation. Nearly a quarter of people who receive phishing emails open them, and 11% click on attachments, according to a Verizon report.” That’s what employers will be cracking down on. And you may need to review such procedures, and even your own payment processing network (which should be kept separate from the rest of your company’s networks) in your business.

Security issues aren’t going to go away, and payment is going to get more multi-platformed, and if anything, faster, so this would be the new year to “resolve” to take action on those fronts. Even starting with EMV readiness, for example, if you’ve been waiting to upgrade.

Meanwhile, it already feels like Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it! Here’s to “securing up” in the new year!